As busy home cooks can’t possibly spend all our time in the kitchen, of course we’re always looking for quick recipes and meal prepping tips, but we're not the only ones. It turns out, even Ina Garten, a TV-famous chef and author of over 10 cookbooks, would rather not put too much of her time into any one dish. In a recent interview, Garten revealed that she's just not a fan of making food that takes more than a "couple hours."
Last week, Ina Garten talked to Food & Wine about the new season of her Food Network show Barefoot Contessa: Cook Like A Pro, which premiered this past weekend. During the interview, Garten was asked if there are any dishes she still has trouble with. Though she didn't reveal that there are any dishes that she can't cook — her show is called Cook Like A Pro after all — she did say that there are dishes out there that she doesn't want to cook. She explained, "There are things that just take too much time, like Bouillabaisse. It takes a long time to make a classic Bouillabaisse or a duck confit."
The Barefoot Contessa said that although she'd gladly order those time-consuming dishes at a restaurant, she's not going to put in the time to make it herself. She continued, "Anything that has to do with a demi-glace. I can make a demi-glace but who wants to? Whereas at a restaurant, they have people that do that."
Instead of demi-glaces, Bouillabaisses, and the like, Garten keeps her dishes a little less complicated. She told Food & Wine, "I like to make really simple, absolutely delicious food that takes a couple hours to make, and I’m not crying and exhausted and sweating." Same, TBH. The Barefoot Contessa even revealed one of her secret weapons for "simple, absolutely delicious food." Sheet pans. The cookbook author explained, "I have a stack of sheet pans. A lot of people have one. I have eight." With sheet pan shortcuts and a ban on complex recipes, Ina Garten's "How easy is that?" catch phrase clearly stuck for a reason.